


Finer than the print

by Yuu_chi



Category: Half Life Trilogy - Sally Green
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon reading disability, Library AU, M/M, Nathan really has a thing for Gabriel's voice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 18:59:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4757381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuu_chi/pseuds/Yuu_chi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathan's not obsessed with the local librarian's voice. (or his face). Really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finer than the print

**Author's Note:**

> Ey, it's the library AU I promised six months ago. The real MVPs here are the people who had to put up with my never ending taunting and the gf for proofreading 10k for a fandom she's not even in. 
> 
> It's real nice to have Nathan swooning over Gab for a change. I regret nothing.

Nathan hates libraries.

To be fair though, Nathan hates a lot of things. It just so happens that libraries sit remarkably high up on his list.

They’re… big. And loud. And maybe not crowded but still a little too much of a public space for him.

More than that though, they’re full of words. On posters and doors and crammed into the books that line walls and everywhere Nathan looks is _words_ ; jumbled discombobulations of letters that wriggle and writhe and hurt his eyes.

They remind him of that little thing that he doesn’t have and Nathan has spent so much of his life pretending it didn’t bother him and, most of the time, it doesn’t. Libraries though, they rub his nose in it. There are kids here that can do what he can’t and Nathan isn’t strong enough to let that breeze him by.

He always goes home with a roaring headache, a thick shame heavy and hot at the pit of his stomach and the need to feel something break beneath his fist. It’s why he hasn’t been in one since he dropped out of school at sixteen (and boy, wasn’t that the greatest relief of his life.)

The problem is, of course, that Nathan is the biggest fucking pushover and basically he hates himself.

“ _Please_ ,” Deborah had said. “I wouldn’t ask, but I really need this book, Nathan, and I’m working and Arran’s at school and there’s nobody else who can get it.”

“I can’t –.”

“You don’t even need to do anything; just give somebody at the front desk this piece of paper and they’ll get the book for you. I’ve already told them my brother will pick it up for me.”

“ _You already –_ I haven’t even said yes!”

“Nathan,” Deborah had said, and she’d just _looked_ at him and Nathan had crumpled like a bad soufflé.

Which is why Nathan is wasting his Thursday afternoon like this when he could be, oh, he doesn’t know; _any-fucking-where else._

As far as libraries go, it could be worse. It’s – well, not small. But contained. Manageable. The shelves loom and clutter him in but it’s better than the ones where everything is spacey and open and basically impossible to hide in.

Not that he’s going to be hiding. But Nathan likes having the option.

It’s about eleven in the morning and there’s barely any foot traffic. Nathan passes by a harried looking college student on his way in, sees a couple of old people sitting at tables and on couches with newspapers, but barely anybody his own age.

Which is on purpose, obviously, because if Nathan is going to making a right arse of himself he’d rather not do it with witnesses around. People he knows could use this library. Old classmates, people who Nathan may or may-not have broken fingers of and the like.

He doesn’t want this to be any more embarrassing than it’s already going to be.

 _Let’s get this over with_ , he thinks grimly as he strides to the front desk, hefty mud-stained boots clacking unpleasantly on the tile floor.

The desk is a large and decidedly empty when Nathan arrives. There’s a stack of books to the right next to a computer that looks older, if it all possible, than the one in the Byrn household, and a small service bell to the left.

Nathan looks around nervously. Somebody shuffles their newspaper over in the reading corner. An old man coughs across the room. Quiet library noises that make him shiver and not in a good way.

He’s not even sure what he’s meant to be doing. Looking for a library uniform? That seems a little unlikely. He could always press the bell, he knows, but he’d just rather… not. He doesn’t want to be here enough as it is. If he hits that bell it’s going to _ding_ , and if it _dings_ , it’s going to do it _loudly_.

And everybody in this library is going to look up and see Nathan standing at the counter with his hands aggressively shoved in the pockets of his very-nearly-torn-to-shreds jeans and they’re going to remember him for sure. He’ll be the dinner time story; the punk with the combat boots and tattoos they saw in the library today.

Nathan doesn’t like the idea of that. But once again, Nathan doesn’t exactly _like_ a whole lot.

He lingers for a moment, fingers curling anxiously around the scrap of paper in his pocket and his options are basically wait at the desk quietly for some assistance or wonder off and find it on his own, and, well, Nathan’s never been known for his patience.

The library is cut in half by a wall of shelves; the entrance, service area and serious shelving on one side and what Nathan assumes is the more community friendly part of the building on the other. The community part is a little disconcerting of course, but Nathan tries to make it look like he has a clue in hell what he’s doing as he walks away from the desk and around the shelves.

Immediately Nathan realizes it’s far emptier on this side, and, at the same time, much more colourful. There’s the waxy smell of crayons and crinkly crepe paper and the walls are covered with bubbly stick figures with sickening smiles that stare down on him. There’s a sign next to them in official looking print that Nathan _might_ be able to read if he squinted and tried hard enough, but already his head is starting to get that far-away pounding in it.

He looks away, jarred and a little uncertain because _wasn’t this a library_ –

And that’s when he hears the voice.

“– _I’ve got a new friend, all right. But what a gamble friendship is –”_

Nathan freezes where he stands and finally he sees what he really should have seen when he first turned the corner; a gaggle of children sitting on stools and soft carpeted floors being read to by what he assumes is a library worker.

He can’t see him clearly from this angle – only messy dark hair carefully knotted at the back of his head – but his voice is –

“ _How can I learn to like her_ ,” the voice says, and the dip and flow is perfectly hypnotizing, “ _even though she is pretty and, of course, clever?_ ”

There’s an accent there, Nathan is sure of it. Less sure _what,_ exactly. French maybe? Something thereof. It’s liquid, candlelight; nothing like Nathan’s ever heard. It slithers down his spine in a wash of warmth; curves around to sit pleasant and hot in his stomach.

He could listen to it forever, he thinks dazedly, and before the thought is even fully formed the reader turns and looks up sharply right at Nathan.

His eyes are so brown that Nathan almost sees gold.

The moment is over so quick that Nathan almost thinks he imagines it, but then the reader is closing the book in his lap. “And that’s it for this time, I think,” he says, and his voice is higher now, cheerful and sweet and without the deep memorizing hum of the reading Nathan feels like he’s waking from a sleep.

There’s a chorus of disappointed moans and Nathan almost wants to join in. He blinks, startled and a little sick and completely, horrifically embarrassed because he’s been standing here for god knows how long listening to this man reading to kids and wow, if he’d thought this through he would have realized how creepy this is.

The reader says something to the children, his back still to Nathan, and then he’s turning around, setting the book down gently on the chair and _he is walking right over_.

Nathan panics, flounders, wonders if he can possibly sprint out of here in time, but no, the man is closer than the entrance is and Nathan, for the first time in his life, is rooted so deeply to the floor he’s pretty damn sure than not even an act of god could move him now.

“Hi,” says the reader, smiling at Nathan with white teeth and brown eyes and Nathan just stares at him in horror. “Sorry about this,” he makes a vague gesture to the circle of children who are talking excitedly with each other, occasionally glancing up at the two of them and giggling. “I usually sit down with the kids for a half hour every day during the week about now. I didn’t think anybody would be coming in at this time.” He holds out a hand. “I’m Gabriel. I work here. Which you’ve probably already figured out.”

Nathan stares at it; long fingers and olive skin. There’s a beat, a moment of awkwardness, where Nathan stands as still as a statue before he hesitatingly reaches out to shake.

Gabriel’s skin is warm, and the tips of his fingers are rough on the back of Nathan’s hand.

He smiles at him and Nathan is nearly blinded. Not just because Gabriel smiles like he hides the sun behind his teeth, but because Nathan actually really _looks_ at him for the first time, and Nathan might not get out much, it’s true, but he’s about a hundred per cent sure he’s never seen somebody this attractive in real life before.

 _Oh shit_ , Nathan thinks, because he has a terrible track record when it comes to first meetings and an even worse one when it comes to attractive strangers with warm skin and bright eyes and voices that make him think of star-lit skies and grass under his back.

“I hope you weren’t waiting for long,” Gabriel says, and when Nathan doesn’t say anything in return he smiles wider still and asks, with a hint of humor to his voice that nearly makes Nathan flush _because he’s being so obvious oh my god_ ; “Can I help you with anything?”

“Um,” Nathan says, and he finally remembers to drop Gabriel’s hand. “Sorry, yes. I’m supposed to pick up a book for my sister?”

“Do you know which book?” Gabriel asks, and this is the part where Nathan’s heart starts beating unevenly because this could go really badly.

He digs around in his pocket and pulls out Deborah’s note. Gabriel doesn’t even blink as Nathan hands it over, but his fingers graze Nathan’s momentarily and Nathan feels an honest to god spark jump between them.

He yanks his hand away so fast that something in his shoulder complains loudly.

“Oh, sorry,” Gabriel says, and he looks at least a little flustered, but he’s turning to look at the paper which is great because Nathan’s pretty certain he’s an embarrassing shade of red right now and he’s cocked this up really, really badly for something that’s meant to be so simple. Gabriel’s eyes skim the squeaky lines of Deb’s handwriting and he looks up and smiles again. Nathan’s stomach flops. Again. “Deborah’s your sister?”

Nathan bites his lip and shrugs. Gabriel smiles harder – what a weirdo, here Nathan is acting like the biggest creep on the planet and Gabriel just keeps smiling and smiling like he gets paid for each one. He starts walking and Nathan falls in step behind him, deliberately keeping more space between them than he probably needs to.

“She mentioned she’d be sending her brother to get it, but I thought it’d be Arran again,” Gabriel was saying as he walked, voice soft and smooth and Nathan’s eyes were tracing the way his dark shirt pulled at his shoulders, the line of his spine he could see under it; the form fitting jeans and wow, Gabriel has a really, really nice arse.

 _Eyes forward Byrn_ , Nathan tells himself and looks up just in damn time because Gabriel turns around, book in hand. He tries not to look like he was just ogling him, and if there’s trace amounts of guilt on his face Gabriel either doesn’t notice or does him the courtesy of ignoring it.

“This should be the one,” Gabriel says, holding the book out to Nathan who tentatively reaches for it but when he goes to pull away Gabriel holds fast. Nathan looks up in surprise and Gabriel, once again, smiles. “Your name?”

“What?” Nathan says, baffled.

His grin turns playful. “I want to know your name.”

If Nathan even knew the first part of basic human interaction he would have just given it without a fuss, but he can’t honestly remember the last time he talked with somebody he wasn’t related to, so, without even meaning it, he blurts: “Why?”

And Gabriel says without so much as missing a beat: “because you’re cute.”

Nathan’s jaw drops and his blood goes cold at the same time his face goes hot. He stands there, the book in both of their hands and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say to that. Nathan knows what he looks like. He’s got tattoos and scars and he dresses like he’s about to walk into battle and he’s been called a lot of things, unpleasant, nasty things that used to stick up in his head, but he’s never, ever been called _cute._

“You need your eyes checked,” he manages to choke out after a moment, and it comes out a little more aggressive than he intended. Gabriel doesn’t even blink; smiles at him sunnily.

“Name?” He repeats, and his voice has dropped a few decibels so that it’s the same silk and silver as before and Nathan doesn’t have a single bone in him that could resist that kind of pressure.

“Nathan,” he says, the word pulled from him without thought.

Gabriel lets the book go and Nathan just stands where he is, awkwardly holding a book in midair.

“Nathan,” Gabriel says, and he sounds so, so pleased and Nathan is pleased too, by the sound of his name on that tongue more than he probably should. Gabriel steps forward, near enough for Nathan to smell the pleasant undertone of cologne and coffee and old books, and pats his shoulder with a hand that lingers, curling so that his fingertips brush against the back of Nathan’s neck. “It was good to meet you, Nathan,” he says and he honestly sounds like he _means_ it.

Nathan’s not used to that. Not used to people actually being pleased to see him. And he’s really not used to people being this close to him, hands touching him. And for once the uncomfortable prickle under his skin isn’t entirely awful.

He steps away anyway and stares at the floor. “Thanks,” he says awkwardly. “For the book, I mean.”

“No problem,” Gabriel says, but at this precise moment one of the kids from before comes skidding around the corner, barreling right into Gabriel’s leg and whatever tension had been building between them shatters instantly.

Nathan takes the chance to escape, doesn’t even bother to say goodbye, just turns and hightails it out of there so fast that he accidentally slams the library door behind him as he goes hard enough for the glass to wobble.

.

“Here,” Nathan says the moment Deborah walks in the door, shoving the book into her chest so suddenly that she almost drops it.

“Nathan? Oh, this is – thanks –.”

“You owe me so bad,” he says. “You don’t even know. That was _mortifying_ , Deb.”

She snorts, ruffles his hair as she drops her bag by the door and heads to the kitchen. “Don’t be such a big baby. It does you some good to get out every now and again.”

He follows after her. Nathan’s been feeling unsettled even since he got home – a simmer in his blood that he was itching to cure – and considering the absolute _travesty_ the library had been, Deborah is fair game. “It was. There were children there, Deb. _Children_.”

“In a public place?” Deborah says, deadpan, as she rinses a mug at the sink and sets the kettle to boil. “How _awful_.”

“You joke,” Nathan says, “but it _was_. Gabriel was reading to them and –.”

The sentence isn’t even fully out of his mouth when Deborah’s eyes flick up from the sink and Nathan has just enough time to think _oh fuck_.

“Gabriel?”

“I mean, you know, the library guy.” Deborah’s staring at him and Nathan can feel the way his shoulders are creeping up to his ears which has been his defensive tell for as long as he’s been alive. “His name’s Gabriel.”

Deborah puts the mug aside with a solid clunk. “Is it now?”

Nathan scowls at her. “Yes. And you knew that, obviously.”

She’s smiling now and Nathan knows she’s probably going to drag everything out of him in two minutes flat if he doesn’t get out of here soon. If Arran had been here it’d have been thirty seconds.

“It took me a month to learn his name,” Deborah says. “You move fast, Nathan.”

“That’s not – oh my god – don’t say stupid shit like that.”

“You’re red,” she points out unhelpfully.

“Shut up,” Nathan snaps and he turns around and escapes upstairs leaving Deborah’s laughing behind him.

.

The next day Nathan stands in front of the library and asks himself if he’s absolutely, positively sure he wants to do this.

(Do _what_ , is probably the question, but Nathan’s not really ready to think that part through. Focus on the doing and then the what-ing. He’s not a great multitasker. One thing at a time.)

He’d snuck out of the house while Arran and Deborah were eating breakfast, had barely paused to toss a quick ‘ _going-out-for-a-bit-bye’_ over his shoulder as he left. If they decided he needed to be questioned then Nathan knew he would probably fold like wet paper.

 _You can do this_ , Nathan thinks, but he’s never been a particularly inspirational speaker and the thought feels flat and fake. He tries again. _You can fucking do this, Jesus Christ, it’s just a library, you’re allowed to be here. Nothing suspicious about that_.

That works slightly better. He sucks in a breath, squares his shoulders and pushes open the door to stride inside before he can over think it.

He’s a little earlier than last time, and the library is even emptier for it. Ten-thirty on a Friday is even deader than eleven on a Thursday, and Nathan allows himself to unclench just slightly.

Now that he knows what to listen for he can hear a faint stream of words from the kid’s corner. He doesn’t really know how he missed that the first time. Honestly, he’d probably been so worked up that a bomb could have landed right next to him and gone off and the first Nathan would have known about it was when he realized his legs were halfway across the room.

He’s still tense as fuck, but he doesn’t feel like he’s about to be sick everywhere either so that’s progress.

Licking his lips Nathan shuffles over to the nearest shelf and scans the books. He thinks they’re classics, maybe. The titles twist and tangle themselves and Nathan does his best to not even look at the words; picks the one with the most harmless looking cover at random.

Now comes the hard part.

Trying to look as inconspicuous as possible – and he’d even dressed for the occasion, sort of; jeans with minimal tearing and a plain black shirt – Nathan makes his way over to the sturdy shelf that cut the room in two and sits down on the couch backed up near it.

He folds his legs and opens his book, staring at the blank spaces between sentences and breathes short and evenly through his teeth as he listens.

“ – _they just keep trotting back and forth across the bridge thinking there is something better on the other side_ ,” Gabriel says, and his voice is slippery smooth like warming butter and just as likely to give Nathan a heart attack.

Nathan sighs without meaning to and the college student sitting at a table not far over gives him a funny look.

The next half hour is bliss. The soothing flow of Gabriel’s voice is like a gentle waterfall that washes away all the anger and tension from Nathan in a way he’d never thought was possible. Occasionally Nathan remembers to turn a page to keep up pretense, but mostly he rests his head against the back of the couch and slips low in his seat.

At some point he closes his eyes, better to focus on Gabriel.

When he was younger Arran used to read to him. It’d been good, obviously, but for Nathan the fun had been more in the familiarity of being able to curl up close to his big brother without worrying about coming off too clinging, of being pushed away.

He doesn’t know when they stopped. Probably about the same time Nathan’s attitude had started to bloom. When school had gone completely to shit and Nathan had learnt to close himself off from those kinds of things, treat any acknowledgment of his disability like it was a personal slight.

He sort of misses it now. He thinks of the few years more he and Arran could have gotten before the habit would have died out naturally.

Listening to Gabriel however is nothing like that.

It doesn’t matter that Nathan doesn’t even know what the story is, that it’s aimed at children, that he’s not even really reading for _Nathan_ ; there’s a magnetic pull in his voice that Nathan couldn’t put into words if he tried. It’s warm and comfortable, and the accent twists his words like Nathan has never before heard.

He’s decided it’s some form of French-hybrid. It’s nothing like the corny foreign soaps Deborah loves to watch, but the edges to it are familiar. Either way, Nathan loves it.

Nathan is so wrapped up in it that he doesn’t even realize it’s stopped for a long, lingering moment. Too long of a moment. Nathan opens his eyes and glances back down at his watch. It’s just past eleven. Finishing time, he supposes.

When he looks up it’s to see Gabriel standing in front of him and Nathan just about has that fucking heart attack he thought about so lightly earlier. He’s been startled and scared a lot in his life, but his pulse goes from lazy and fulfilled to frozen to high speed pounding so quick that Nathan actually lets out what is probably a very unattractive wheeze.

“Nathan,” Gabriel says, and then frowns. “Are you okay?”

“Peachy,” Nathan grunts. “You just – came out of nowhere.”

“I’ve been standing here for a while,” Gabriel says, puzzled.

 _Oh shit._ Probably ever since he’d finished the reading then, and Nathan feels so embarrassed he kind of just wants to die right then and there, because Nathan had probably looked high off his face with the way Gabriel’s reading had left him feeling. “You have?”

“Well, yes.” Gabriel hesitates, glances at the open book in Nathan’s lap. “Am I interrupting? I just thought I might come over and say hello.”

“No,” Nathan says hurriedly, slamming the book closed. Gabriel raises an eyebrow at him. “I mean, you’re not interrupting. I was just –” _listening to you read to children because your voice is literally amazing_ “– sitting,” he finishes lamely.

 “Well,” Gabriel says, and gestures to the empty spot beside Nathan with lips the curl just right at the corners. “Would you mind if I joined you in your ‘sitting’?”

Nathan shakes his head mutely and Gabriel does just that.

He’s worn his hair out today, and as he sits down a strand of it falls in his face and Gabriel absently tucks it behind his ear with quick fingers and an unconscious titling of his head to keep it at bay. He is really, truly gorgeous and his thigh is so close to Nathan’s that if he shifted just the tiniest bit he would feel them touch.

Nathan normally doesn’t like this, people sitting so close to him; hates to feel closed in and trapped, has been known to get up and leave a room the moment somebody thought that they had the right to be closer to him than Nathan was comfortable with.

It’s not like that with Gabriel. Nathan almost wishes he was sitting closer.

“So,” Gabriel says, “what book is it that you’re reading?”

Nathan freezes, glances at the book in his lap.

The title is long. Two words, he thinks. Which mean they’re both actually pretty short. It… starts with an _a_ , which Nathan can usually recognize well enough at a glance seeing as his own name has two, but the rest is out of his grasp. If he tried hard enough, had thought to take the time to sound it out in preparation for something like this, he might have been able to get away with it.

As it is Nathan reads his worst when he’s panicking and that’s exactly what he’s doing right now.

“Um,” Nathan says, and his words are sticky in his throat and Gabriel is _staring_ at him, completely unaware of the fact that he’s bringing Nathan’s whole world down around him. This is so, so stupid. Nathan knows it. But he can feel the flush clinging at his throat, the paleness in his cheeks.

And suddenly he really doesn’t want Gabriel to know.

Gabriel is attractive and so clearly intelligent and he probably works here because he loves it; goes home and reads long, difficult books and understands everything they tell him. Gabriel has probably never met a word that didn’t like him in his life. Letters don’t jump around and play tricks. Letters for Nathan are a lot like lightening because they never seem to be in the same place twice.

And most of all Nathan hates that he feels like this. That he feels ashamed over it, because he knows it’s not something he can help. But Nathan remembers a little too clearly what it was like to be called stupid and illiterate and a dozen and one other things.

He’d pushed a kid out of a window for it once. It was how he’d gotten expelled from his first school.

Gabriel must see what’s happening on his face because he goes from curious and interested to worried and confused in an instant. “Nathan, are you alright? Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” Nathan says, and _fuck it all_. He stares down at his lap, at the white knuckled grip he has on the flimsy paperback he’s holding. He takes a deep breath and manages to say with an impressive amount of falsified blandness: “I can’t… I can’t actually read.”

It’s silent. Not library silent. Graveyard silent.

There’s a momentary rustle and Nathan looks up in surprise as Gabriel gently pulls the book from his hands.

“Animal Farm,” he says, and normally Nathan bristles at people reading to him like he’s an invalid but there’s something in Gabriel’s voice that feels a lot more like a question than anything else. He glances up at Nathan and his eyes are a beautiful, light brown. “By George Orwell. One of his greatest.”

Nathan shrugs. Looks away. He’s not sure what Gabriel wants from him here.

“Are you interested in it?” Gabriel presses softly.

Nathan shrugs again. “I mean, I wouldn’t say I’m _not_ interested in it.”

There’s a light touch on his shoulder and Nathan starts violently and turns back to look at Gabriel.

“It’s a great book,” Gabriel says, then he hesitates and, for the first time since Nathan met him, he looks adorably self-conscious. “I think you’d really like it. I could read it to you, if you like?”

Nathan stares. His mouth is dry. “What?”

Gabriel smiles, but he still looks a little nervous. “I do get paid to read to children. I’m practically a professional.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Nathan says automatically, even though it is a horrible, blatant lie. After a second he adds: “And I’m also not a child, Gabriel. I’m just a guy who can’t read, okay?”

Gabriel’s eyes go wide and he looks horrified. He shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant at all. I like talking to you, Nathan. And to be honest I wouldn’t mind having somebody to discuss this book with. So this is mostly selfish on my part, if we’re being honest here.”

Nathan doesn’t think Gabriel has been selfish a day in his life. “Look,” he says reluctantly, “you don’t need to take time out of your day to try and make me feel better about something like this, okay? It’s not –.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Gabriel interjects fiercely. “You don’t have to say yes, of course, but it’s honestly something I’d like to do, if you’d give me a chance. I like reading, and I like you. Sounds like a good combination to me.”

 _I like you_. Nathan’s cheeks flush and it’s that which crumples the last of his fragile defense. “Fucking _okay_. But if you decide you’d rather be doing something else, that’s on you not me.”

Gabriel looks delighted. Positively thrilled. “I’ve got to get back to work now, but are you free tomorrow? I’m off on the weekends.”

“I guess so,” Nathan says, completely off kilter.

 “We could meet up at the park across from here if you’d like. At eleven?”

“Okay,” Nathan agrees, and he’s not even aware he’s saying it until the words are out.

Gabriel stands up; brushing one hand across Nathan’s knee in what could have been a perfectly innocent gesture or … something else. Oh god, Nathan hopes it was something else.

And just when Nathan thought his heart couldn’t beat any harder Gabriel looks him right in the eye, smiles, and says: “It’s a date then.”

.

Nathan is so distracted at dinner that night that he burns what was meant to be a very nice minestrone soup and he’s not even entirely sure how.

“It tastes fine,” Arran says diplomatically, and Deborah struggles to keep a straight face when she forces down her third mouthful in as many minutes. “It’s… just got a little extra flavor.”

Nathan sighs and gets up to gather everybody’s bowls. “Don’t eat it if it tastes that bad, you’ll give yourself food poisoning and then it’ll be my fault,” he scolds, and both his siblings have the decency to look appropriately abashed.

“Sorry,” Deborah sighs. “Pizza?”

Arran grimaces, opens his mouth probably to say something doctorly about health and cholesterol. Nathan turns to point one of the spoons he’s putting into the dishwasher at him threateningly and Arran rolls his eyes instead.

Deborah gets up to go call for delivery and the minute she’s out of the room Arran turns around asks: “So are you going to tell me why you’re so distracted or am I going to have to ask Deborah?”

Nathan flushes, slams the dishwasher closed. “I don’t know what you’re on about.”

Arran snorts. “You’ve got that wistful faraway look. It’s like Annalise all over again.”

“I was fourteen! You can’t hold that against me!”

Arran waves a hand dismissively. “Fourteen, seventeen, you’re still the same Nathan. You’ve never been great at hiding your emotions.”

Nathan leans against the bench and drums his fingers against the countertop. “There’s, well, there’s this guy,” he admits reluctantly, and Arran’s eyes light up but he doesn’t say anything else, just nods encouragingly and Nathan is grateful that Deborah’s not in the room because he loves her to pieces but she can get a little too invested in Nathan’s life sometimes. “And I’m meeting up with him tomorrow, I guess.”

Arran’s grin grows wider. “Is it a date?”

Nathan goes red and remembers the same word flowing off Gabriel’s tongue. “I don’t know,” he admits slowly. He wants it to be, he really does, but Nathan doesn’t have the kind of optimism in him to make assumptions like that.

“Do you want it to be?” Arran asks, and Nathan sort of resents the mandatory psychology classes he had to start taking for his medical degree.

“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.” Nathan rakes jittery hands through his hair and looks fixatedly at floor.

There’s the squeak of Arran pushing his chair back and the soft patter of his feet as walks forward. He pulls Nathan into a hug and Nathan doesn’t resist, lets Arran kiss his forehead like Nathan is twelve again. “He sounds great,” Arran says and Nathan nods and hopes it’s true.

.

The next morning Nathan spends half an hour picking through his closet for something that felt suitable but not try hard. For possibly the first time in his life Nathan has the realization that wow, everything he owns looks practically the same.

More than that though, Nathan starts worrying about things that even he knows are stupid.

(Should he hide his tattoos? His scars? Do something with the limpness of his hair? The dark rings around his eyes?)

 _Fuck it_ , Nathan thinks and dresses the same way he always does because if Gabriel is the kind of person to judge him on something like this then he doesn’t really want to associate with him to begin with.

(Nathan hopes he’s not though, prays for it harder than he’s prayed for anything in a long time.)

It’s a little past eleven when Nathan arrives, and Gabriel is sitting at a picnic table with his back to him and his head bowed down. He’s clearly reading and when Nathan approaches he sees that he’d been right about one thing; Gabriel likes big, complicated books. Actually, as he comes in closer, Nathan starts to think it might not even be in English.

He’s not sure though. It’s not like he’s got the greatest grip on English itself to start with.

His shadow must fall over the book because Gabriel looks up, smiling when he sees him. “You came,” he says.

Nathan shrugs and slides in across from him. “Don’t sound surprised. I said I would, didn’t I?”

“You did, but I was worried I made you uncomfortable yesterday.” He passes a thick Styrofoam cup to Nathan before he can fully process that last statement. “Coffee. Black. I wasn’t sure how you liked it. I have some cream and sugar here.”

“Black’s fine,” Nathan says, still a bit disorientated. “I didn’t bring any money with me.”

Gabriel shakes his head. “If you did I wouldn’t accept it anyway. Think of it as a thank you.”

“You’re the one reading to _me_ ,” Nathan replies awkwardly.

Gabriel laughs. “For your company, then.”

Nathan stares at him for a moment. “You’re kind of strange, you know?”

Again, Gabriel laughs. It’s almost infectious. Makes Nathan want to smile. “You’re not much better yourself, Nathan. I’m still not entirely certain why you were in the library yesterday if you didn’t go there to read?”

His tone is playful but also genuinely curious and Nathan hurriedly fishes for another topic because if there’s one thing he doesn’t want Gabriel to know it’s that Nathan’s been a little infatuated with him since the very time he heard his voice.

“Did you bring the book? I hope you’re not planning on reading me that.” He nods at the tome Gabriel has open before him.

Gabriel shakes his head and packs it away. “I could, but I’m afraid I don’t read quite as well if I’m trying to translate in my head as I do it.”

That does perk Nathan’s interest. “Not English, then?”

Gabriel looks at him from where he’s pulling out the familiar battered paperback from his bag. “French,” he says. “My father is Swiss and my mother was English. I spent a lot of time jumping between countries growing up.”

There’s a past tense there that Nathan could press on, but he’s got enough firsthand experience to know better than that. Instead he says: “Well, that would explain your accent.”

Gabriel tries to look offended, crinkles his brow at him and bites at his lip like he’s holding back a smile. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Nathan grins over his coffee. “Your accent is all over the place. It sounds closest to French, but nothing like any of the French accents I’ve heard before.”

“Do you know a lot of people who speak with a French accent?” Gabriel asks, leaning forward.

Nathan shrugs. “Just what I heard on TV. I don’t go chatting up every cute foreigner I see.”

The smile that splits Gabriel’s face this time is stomach-droppingly seductive.  “Well, Nathan, I can’t figure out what I should focus on first; the fact I’m apparently a cute foreigner or that you’re apparently chatting me up.”

Nathan honest to god chokes on his coffee. He has a moment of panic that this is how he’s going to die; bitter coffee on his tongue as he quite literally embarrasses himself to death in front of the singular most attractive human being he’s ever had the pleasure of meeting.

“That’s not what I meant at all, and you know it,” Nathan splutters, but it’s abundantly clear that Gabriel is delighting in his flustered response. He positively preens as Nathan glares at him, unconcerned and unoffended in a way that Nathan hasn’t seen a stranger react to him in a long time.

“Let’s read, shall we?” Gabriel says.

.

It becomes a habit after that.

What Nathan had thought would have been one session turns into two and two becomes three, and rather suddenly it’s six and they’re close to finishing the book and Nathan is starting to panic.

What happens after? Is Gabriel going to stop asking him to the park every other day and buying him coffee and reading to him in that soft pleasant hum that he has the audacity to call a voice, like it was anywhere near that benign?

Nathan had started hearing him in his sleep; the tender roll of his vowels, the way he sounded when it was cold out and they sat so close together that he was all but murmuring in Nathan’s ear. More than that, he was seeing him too; in strangers and in the attractive hair models as he walked past salons and in his damn _dreams_.

His subconscious was trying to tell him something, but Nathan was having none of that. He already knew how attractive Gabriel was. Didn’t need it pounded home in the way he would wake up with the image of his broad shoulders, the tiny mole at the very nape of his neck that Nathan could only see when he wore his hair up, the curve of his fingers as he brushed loose falling locks behind his ears and the absolutely heart breaking warmth in his eyes when he smiled which was about as often as he _breathed_.

It’s terrifying because Nathan can’t remember the last time he looked at somebody like this. He’s dated people, if barely, and he doesn’t remember any of them – not even Annalise O’Brien – making him feel like _… this_.

Sometimes, when Nathan is with Gabriel, he forgets to hate himself. He tells Nathan _I like you_ with sweet smiles and pleasant touches against his hand and Nathan is helpless to do anything but shiver and want to believe him.

Gabriel is a Good Thing and Nathan is terrifyingly, depressingly unused to Good Things. He’s got a self-sabotage streak to him a mile wide and has the tendency to resort to sarcasm and anger when he’s embarrassed or nervous.

Gabriel though, he doesn’t mind when Nathan grunts instead of contributing to conversation; laughs when Nathan scoffs at something stupid as he reads; seems almost delighted by Nathan’s stand-offish attitude at times.

He called him _cute_. That was two weeks ago now and Nathan still remembers it with alarming clearness. He didn’t think he’d ever want to be considered ‘cute’ until it happened and now he cannot _stop_ thinking about it.

Gabriel’s beautiful and funny and he’s so smart that it’s literally mind-blowing and Nathan cannot believe he was as lucky to find him in this nowhere town in England. He smiles where other people frown and he looks at Nathan with such reverence that it’s enough to make Nathan want to _hope_.

And his voice. Nathan could write sonnets about his voice, which is saying a lot because Nathan can’t really write at all. He knows that people like Gabriel are called smooth-talkers, those with silver tongues, but Nathan disagrees.

He thinks if anything Gabriel has a voice of gold; genuine and rich and pure and one of the most beautiful, coveted things to ever exist.

Gabriel makes Nathan want to be a better person. He makes Nathan want to not snap so much, to keep from feeling the anger he thought was an inevitable part of himself. He makes Nathan think that if somebody as perfect as Gabriel likes him even a little, then surely Nathan _must_ be worth _something?_

“He’s a good influence,” Arran says whenever Nathan comes home from a ‘date’ with a soft smile and an almost gentleness to him that’s about as rare as a blue moon. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you happy like this.”

“Yeah,” Nathan says and he does his best not to sigh wistfully.

.

It’s a Sunday and they’re in a coffeeshop this time.

It’s getting too cold out to be spending their time in parks or down by the river. Nathan had thought they’d maybe go to the library but it was Gabriel who had suggested they go to a café. He’d been almost shy; nervous like he thought Nathan was going to say _no_.

Nathan doesn’t think he has a single bone in him that is capable of saying _no_ to Gabriel, although his heart had done a serious jig at the idea of being alone with him bundled away in the close intimacy of a coffeehouse.

Reading in the park was good, it was more than good, but it almost felt like a business transaction; a scripted event in a predetermined place. This though, this was unplanned and casual and it felt like something _friends_ would do.

Were they friends? Nathan wasn’t sure. He hadn’t had a friend in a longer time than he could count. He talked with Annalise sometimes and that was comfortable, but there was always that tinge of awkwardness because no matter how mutual their break-up had been she was still his ex-girlfriend and the title felt heavier than that of a ‘friend’.

Gabriel’s something though. Maybe not the something Nathan wants him to be, but something to him nonetheless.

“So,” Gabriel says as they source out a table in the noisy back of the room, “let me buy you coffee?”

“You always buy me coffee,” Nathan points out. “How about you sit the fuck down and let me do it for once?”

“I like buying you coffee,” Gabriel says shamelessly, fingers folded loosely on the wooden tabletop as he smiles at Nathan and he should be used to it by now, but somehow he’s not.

Gabriel smiles a thousand times a day and yet it still feels so precious. You can see a rare thing every second of your life but that doesn’t change what it is.

“And I like it when you let me do what I want,” Nathan says back, and he turns on his heel and escapes towards the counter before Gabriel can argue with him because god knows they’d be here all day fighting over it otherwise.

He gets the largest possible sizes for both of them – black for him, and some disgusting chocolate coffee monstrosity for Gabriel because he knows that he secretly likes it – and as he totters back over to the table he sees Gabriel is just sitting there and there’s not a book in sight.

Nathan pauses for only a moment in his step before he walks forward and puts their drinks down as gingerly as he can manage, sliding into the corner seat that puts him closer to Gabriel’s diagonal than directly across from him.

They have three or four chapters left, and it’s not like Nathan disapproves of a magical realism story based on the idea of corrupt communism, but he has to admit he likes the idea of being able to see Gabriel without the pretense of the book.

“Thank you,” Gabriel says graciously, and he doesn’t try to pay Nathan because they’ve argued enough to know that neither of them is going to accept any money from the other, but that doesn’t stop him from saying: “I should have gotten it though.”

Nathan snorts and takes a long, loud gulp. “I’m not so poor that I can’t fork out a few pounds for coffee every now and then.”

“Nathan,” Gabriel sighs, with that established _don’t-deliberately-misinterpret-me_ tone to his voice he’d perfected a week ago. “I know you won’t let me spoil you, so getting you coffee is about the only way I can manage.”

Nathan doesn’t flush – he absolutely _doesn’t_ – but his ears feel hot and the coffee he's sipping at burns his tongue. “Then you’re smarter than you look.”

The corner of Gabriel’s mouth twitches and he reaches for his drink. Nathan hates those flamboyant frappuccino messes with a passion, but Gabriel even manages to make _those_ look good. The cashier over by the counter is staring at him with wide, awed eyes and Nathan half expects her to start snapping photos and using them for promotional purposes.

Gabriel probably wouldn’t even mind. He’d just laugh and wave it off. He was bafflingly unaware of the effect he had on people. To begin with Nathan thought it might have been some form of pity; that Gabriel figured he’d spare them all the embarrassment of openly acknowledging the way he would turn every head in a crowded room. Now Nathan realizes Gabriel is just exceedingly thick about himself.

“I’ve been told quite the opposite usually,” Gabriel says, snapping Nathan’s attention away from his mouth. “My sister says that I’m a walking disappointment when it comes to expectations.”

Nathan can’t help but smile. Gabriel has mentioned his sister before, and every time his voice had been horrifically fond and if there’s anything that Nathan can appreciate it’s a man who cares for his siblings.

“I think your sister and I would get along well,” he says with a straight face and Gabriel gives a delighted laugh, tucking his hair behind his ear.

“You would! It’d be horrific for me though, of course. I don’t know if my ego could take that much pressure.”

“My siblings say the same about me,” Nathan grins, warming his hands on his cup. “Although nowhere near as nicely. There’s usually a comparison to looking like a serial killer in there somewhere.”

Gabriel’s grin grows larger if at all possible and he leans forward into Nathan’s space and he has to remind himself that it’s a crowded, muggy room with lots of people chatting and Gabriel is just trying to hear better. “I don’t think you look like a serial killer, Nathan.”

“Oh?” Nathan asks, raising an eyebrow and leaning forward a little himself so that Gabriel was near enough that he could run his fingers through his hair if he was that brave. “What do I look like, then?”

Gabriel hums under his breath and his gaze flicks over Nathan’s face. It makes it exceedingly hard to think when Gabriel’s eyes are tracing down the bridge of his nose, slowing briefly at his lips, traveling the length of his throat where his first tattoos start and disappear beneath the thick collar of his battered winter coat.

“Dangerous,” Gabriel says, but the word comes out a lot like a breath and Nathan can feel it on his skin. “Unpredictable. A little wild, maybe.”

 _Breathe_ , Nathan coaches himself. “Maybe you’re right,” he challenges. 

Gabriel looks back up into his eyes and when he grins he looks almost as wild as he claims Nathan is. “Maybe I want to be.”

The air feels positively electric and when Nathan breathes he can _feel_ it; the way it tingles along his lips and crackles down in his lungs. Gabriel is still right there, looking at him, and Nathan wants nothing more for him to come in closer; to give Nathan the chance to show him just how dangerous and unpredictable and _wild_ he can be.

Gabriel’s gaze goes back to his lips and Nathan stops breathing entirely and –

“Byrn!”

The moment shatters, splinters messily between them and Nathan jerks backwards with a start, confused and alarmed and Gabriel is blinking over his shoulder and if Nathan didn’t know better he’d say he was _frowning_.

“Byrn! Nathan Byrn, yeah?”

It takes Nathan a moment to recognize his name and a moment longer to recognize the voice. When he does though it hits him like a tonne of bricks. He turns in his seat to see that yes, that is in fact Neil O’Brien striding towards them with a grin on his face like he was actually pleased to see him.

Nathan doesn’t say anything. Can’t possibly think of a single thing to say.

Neil stops by their table. “I thought it was you,” he says, almost conversationally, and all the electricity Nathan had breathed in earlier is turning to acid inside of him, searing away at his throat so he can’t find his voice if he tried. Neil jerks a hand over his shoulder towards the wall of windows. “Saw you as I was walking by.”

“That’s great,” Nathan finally manages to say, and his voice gives away how clearly _not_ -great it is because Gabriel looks up at him sharply. “I don’t fucking care.”

Neil’s smile dims a little. “Look,” he says. “I didn’t come here to start shit. Honest to truly.”

“I don’t care,” Nathan says again, pushing home the point as hard as he can, and Gabriel is watching this whole thing and Nathan kind of wants to punch something, Neil mostly, because this is exactly the side of him, the parts of his life, that Nathan didn’t want him to see. He wants to just get up and walk out and maybe if he’s lucky Gabriel will follow him and Nathan can laugh it off, but Nathan’s never been that kind of person and once his anger starts flowing it’s hard to control it. He takes a deep breath. “Fuck off before I break some more of your fingers.”

Neil holds up his hands as if to put a barrier between them then seems to think better of it and tucks them in his pockets. “Fuck, take a chill pill Byrn. I was just saying hello.”

“I don’t want your ‘hello’,” Nathan snaps and his hands are fisting on the table. “I want you to _piss off_. We’re not friends. We were never friends.”

“It’s just – you’re still close with Annalise and all…” Neil says, but it comes out defensively like he’s finally starting to realize how bad of an idea this was. Nathan doesn’t know why it took him so long. He’d always known Neil wasn’t the brightest spark in the O’Brien family but this takes the cake.

When Nathan was fourteen, Annalise’s three older brothers had virtually beat him to a pulp and given him horrible, nasty scars that stretch across his back like a brand. Three years, one failed police enquiry and a broken relationship later Neil seems to think that it’s all in the past. And it is, mostly, the scars won’t fade and the memories are there but Nathan is a survivor and he’s moved on.

But that doesn’t mean he has to play nice with the people who made six months of his life a living hell. To be fair, he did break a few bones of theirs in retaliation, but that was strictly _after_ the fact.

“You’re _not_ Annalise,” Nathan says, “and I want nothing to do with you.” He finally stands up, pushing his way out of his chair. “Let’s go,” he says to Gabriel, because if he stays here any longer there’s a very real possibility he’s going to smash a chair over Neil’s head.

Something crosses Neil’s face in a flutter of ugliness and before Nathan can think Neil’s turned to Gabriel. “Nathan used to go out with my sister,” he says, and Nathan realizes a moment too late what he’s trying to do. “You want to know why they broke-up? He dumped her for some _guy_. You should look out mate; he’s probably after you too.”

It’s a sentence full of half-truths but that doesn’t really matter because Gabriel _knows_. It’s out there now. Every time he looks at Nathan he’s going to remember what Neil said and if he’s not interested it’s going to break this thing they have between them and he’s going to back away and Nathan can taste the panic like iron on his tongue and –

“I hope so,” Gabriel says, completely calm and giving Neil a sunny smile. “I’ve been hitting on him for two weeks, so imagine how awkward it’d be for me otherwise.”

Nathan stops breathing. Neil gapes. Gabriel smiles.

And then in the space between one blink and the next he balls up his hand and _punches._

.

Nathan sneaks Gabriel into the house like he’s worried about being sprung any moment, dragging him by the wrist up the stairs. He can hear the television playing in the living area and the very last thing he wants is to have to explain to Arran or Deborah why he’s sneaking the resident favourite librarian into his room – or why they have two black eyes and a bloody nose between them.

“Shouldn’t I greet your family?” Gabriel asks, earnest if slightly snuffled with the blood clogging his nose.

Nathan hurries him into his room and shuts the door as quietly as he can manage. “Honestly,” he huffs under his breath, “you need to get ahold of your fucking priorities.” Gabriel smiles winningly at him – and Nathan is baffled how he manages to make bruising and blood look good. “Red and blue are good colours on you,” he says with as much bite as he can muster.

“I can’t say the same about you,” Gabriel says, and he reaches up to brush his thumb over the darkening around Nathan’s eye. He’s still smiling but his mouth is suddenly tight. “I should have broken his neck,” he says conversationally and Nathan can’t help but shiver at how dead serious he sounds.

He takes Gabriel’s hand and pulls it away from his face, knowing that Gabriel will assume it’s because it’s sore. Rather, it’s because it’s very hard to think when Gabriel is touching him like that, when he’s so close and Nathan is trying desperately not to think about what may or may not have been said in the coffeeshop before punches started being thrown.

“Yeah, well, we all make mistakes,” he says, aiming for levity before pushing Gabriel hard in the shoulder. “Now shut-up and go sit on my bed.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows shoot sky high. “Well, you don’t need to ask me twice.”

Blood rushes to Nathan’s cheeks so quick that they burn something fierce, painful and absolutely visible. “Don’t – you’re not – Jesus fucking Christ, _go sit the fucking fuck down_.”

Gabriel laughs, clearly delighted. His nose starts bleeding afresh. His delight quickly turns to mortification, and because Nathan has never claimed to be anything but an absolute asshole he laughs at him, too.

Besides, it’s nice in a way to see Gabriel being as human as the rest of them.

“Bed,” Nathan repeats, “ _sit_.”

This time Gabriel abides, snatching a handful of tissues from Nathan’s desk as he passes and settling on the bed while Nathan busies himself digging out his first-aid kit. There’s not actually all that much digging involved – Nathan has a great need for it on quite the regular basis with his luck – but he takes the opportunity to gather himself without Gabriel watching.

There’s still shakes and tremors that he’s barely holding back, the need to breathe in and in and in because he’s so off kilter and dizzy right now. It’s not the fact he’s very recently taken a punch to the face that’s doing it – although that probably hadn’t helped – but the fact that for the life of him he can’t get the echo of Gabriel’s voice out from where it’s trapped between his ears.

 _I’ve been hitting on him for two weeks_ , Gabriel had said and Nathan was hoping desperately, painfully that he hadn’t been lying. Hadn’t been just trying to show Nathan he didn’t care what Neil had to say, or that he was just trying to spark the brewing fight.

Nathan honestly cannot remember the last time he’d ever felt for someone what he feels for Gabriel. With Annalise everything had been an uphill struggle, so much harder than it needed to be. They hadn’t been happy, with themselves or with each other. A relationship built on such unsteady foundations couldn’t possibly last. Gabriel though, he made everything so frighteningly easy. He makes Nathan happy, makes him like _himself_.

It’s hard to imagine somebody like Gabriel ever wanting somebody like Nathan, but if there’s one thing Nathan has learnt over the past few weeks it’s that Gabriel does not prescribe to anybody’s standards but his own.

Nathan blows out his breath, gathers his shield back around himself and the first-aid kit in hand and strolls over to where Gabriel is waiting with much more confidence than he actually has.

“Head back,” Nathan says briskly as he rips open an antiseptic wipe. Gabriel obliges, pulling the tissues away from his nose. Nathan was relieved to see that it’d stopped bleeding and made quick work scrubbing at the blood sticking around it, the nick on his lip from where Neil’s knuckle must have connected. Gabriel winces anyway. “Sorry,” Nathan mutters, dropping the wipe into the bin beside the bed.

This at least is something he’s used to. Nathan’s more than familiar with bruises and breakings. Has had Arran, even, to make sure he knew how to treat them all.

He tilts Gabriel’s head up a notch with one hand and frowns, skates the fingers of his other over the split on his lip which looks much worse than it had in the coffeeshop. He presses at it gently but Gabriel doesn’t flinch. It’s then that he realizes that actually Gabriel isn’t moving at all and when Nathan looks up Gabriel’s eyes are wide and fixed on Nathan’s.

Rather suddenly Nathan becomes aware of how close they’re standing; him jammed in between Gabriel’s spread legs, his hand on his face and fingers to his lips. Gabriel’s breath is warm and shallow against the pad of Nathan’s thumb. Slowly, Gabriel reaches up and ever so gently takes ahold of Nathan’s wrists. He expects him to pull him away but instead Gabriel softly guides his hands so that they’re against his cheeks, doesn’t hold them there so much as offer himself to Nathan.

Gabriel’s skin is softer than he would have guessed and his fingers spread without thought, thumbs tracing along the sharpness of his cheekbones in slow circles. It feels good, he realizes, to be allowed to touch him like this.

“Nathan,” Gabriel says, and the fingers in his wrists dig just a little.

Nathan wants to ask him about what he said in the coffeeshop, wants to ask if Gabriel means it when he says that he likes him, that the way he lingers on Nathan’s skin when they touch isn’t just wishful thinking. The words are at Nathan’s lips but before they can come out he looks back up into Gabriel’s eyes.

They’re brown and gold and completely, utterly desperate. And Nathan knows he’s not imagining it because he’s become something of an expert in decoding Gabriel and right now he looks like Nathan is his whole world, like he’d break if Nathan stopped touching him.

Nathan feels much the same.

 _Oh_ , he thinks and he gathers up the flaky confidence that he barely has the guts to call courage and kisses him.

He tastes like blood from his puffy lip and feels like stone beneath his hands. For a heart stopping moment he feels Gabriel freeze. There is nothing more terrifying in the world than kissing somebody who does not kiss you back, and in the long stretch of a second after his lips press against Gabriel’s Nathan feels the most fear he has ever felt in his life.

And then Gabriel sighs and drops his hold on Nathan’s wrists to his waist, pulls him so Nathan all but falls against him and kisses back with something that can only be called reverence.

It’s slow and careful, mouths warm and wet and the breaths they catch in between kisses so loud between them. Gabriel’s hands are hot on Nathan’s waist, thumb catching just beneath his shirt to rub in slow circles on his skin. He shivers a little and slides his grip behind to Gabriel’s neck, tilts his head experimentally a little and finds the angle much more fulfilling.

They seem to kiss for an age, learning and exploring. It’s unhurried for all that it’s been building between them since they’d met. Nathan can only hazily remember that they’re both still battered and bruised and he’s sore inside from the words Neil had thrown. The world has narrowed to Gabriel’s warm skin, his big hands, the way he kisses Nathan like he’s been thinking of it for at least as long as Nathan has.

Slowly, he pulls back. Gabriel leans forward to follow him, presses one last kiss against Nathan’s irrepressible smile before he manages to get space between them again.

“Okay?” He asks, studying Gabriel’s face. He bites unconsciously at his lip a little and Gabriel’s gaze flicks to it.

“Nathan,” Gabriel says and then stops for a second like he can’t find any words to follow. He looks a little dazed, almost awed. Nathan’s never given a man a religious experience with his kiss before, but he rather suspects that there’s a first time for everything. Gabriel breathes in, raises one hand up to push the hair out of Nathan’s face. He smiles. “I’ve wanted to do that since the very first time I saw you in the library.”

Nathan grins back, vicious and sharp. “Well,” he says in return and tries to sound confident even though his cheeks are already burning, “I’ve wanted to do that since the first time I heard your voice.”

Gabriel’s face lights up like the sun and at once Nathan finds that he’s hit his limit for all this emotional embarrassment and he knows he must be completely red now because Gabriel is looking more delighted with every passing second.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Gabriel laughs, grabbing ahold of Nathan’s hands as he goes to hide his face in them. He gets a wicked look in his eye and before Nathan can figure out his intention he pulls him hard and off balance so even Nathan’s considerable reflexes can’t stop him from toppling forward onto both Gabriel and the bed.

Within a second Gabriel has them flipped and he’s grinning down at Nathan who can’t help the quick drop in his stomach because it’s admittedly a little hot to have someone who is capable of outmatching him like this.

He raises an eyebrow at Gabriel who looks completely unrepentant and then he grins back with much more teeth than is really strictly smile worthy which is the only warning Gabriel gets before Nathan locks his knees on his waist and rolls them again. Gabriel looks gratifyingly surprised as Nathan settles his weight against his thighs.

“You’ll have to try harder than that,” he offers, lips at the little stretch of skin below Gabriel’s ear.

Gabriel laughs. “Is that a challenge?”

Nathan shrugs nonchalantly and kisses his neck. They’re being stupid. Beyond childish. They’re both too beaten up to be acting like this. Nathan doesn’t even remember the last time he did something like this. But Gabriel’s fingers spread on his back and the way he tilts his head to accommodate him, the way he can feel him trying not to laugh under his lips – it makes it awfully hard for Nathan to go back to being miserable and sullen.

The hand on his back slips under his shirt and Nathan’s skin sparks. Gabriel takes the moment of distraction to try and heave Nathan off him but Nathan is prepared and shifts his weight accordingly so that all they do is bounce harmlessly and a little ridiculously on his mattress. Gabriel groans and Nathan laughs at him.

“Harder than _that_ ,” he scoffs.

“Well,” Gabriel hums, hands running over Nathan’s too-warm skin, “maybe I don’t actually mind this position as much as you think I do.”

Nathan pulls back a little to look at Gabriel. He smiles radiantly at him and takes the chance to lean up and kiss him again. Nathan was starting to get the impression that Gabriel was a very accomplished stealth kisser and he should probably work on having a better guard. For the moment though he was pretty content just to drop one arm lazily around his shoulders and kiss him back.


End file.
